CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- The Philippine Clean Water Act of 2004 had required that all wastewater coming from all industrial, commercial and residential buildings must be processed through some form of sewerage or septage system by the year 2020 -- that is less than two years from now.
Almost two decades after the deadline was set, and the warning of P200,000 for every day of non-compliance, only 10 percent of the population is actually connected through a sewerage system and officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), local government units (LGUs) and water districts are still struggling to implement the National Sewerage and Septage Management Program (NSSMP).
The NSSMP, implemented chiefly by the DPWH, had set the year 2020 as deadline for cities to establish their own sewerage or septage management systems but, since the deadline has only a couple of months to go, it may look like a long shot for most cities and municipalities.
The burden of the implementation was mandated by law among the local government units and water utilities like the City of San Fernando Water District and Angeles City Water District -- two of the largest water utilities in Central Luzon shadowed only by San Jose Del Monte Water District in Bulacan.
The construction and operation of sewerage and septage systems are required by the Clean Water Act of 2004 (Republic Act 9275) and so far, the City Governments of San Fernando and Angeles City in Pampanga had managed to pass their respective water management ordinances, a preparatory requirement for the establishment of the actual treatment facility. The two LGUs are among the handful that managed to come up with ordinances on water management.
The DPWH said that P26.3 billion would be needed to build sewerage and septage facilities for at least 17 highly urbanized cities in the country. The DPWH reported that the hindrances to the development of sewage collection and treatment systems is due to “low level awareness and limited demand from the public, low technical capability to develop infrastructure, lack of enforcement of regulations, and limited resources of water districts and local government units.”
Health and environmental impacts
The United Nations' Sustainable Development Fund, in 2015, said that one in 10 Filipinos defecate in open places. This means that some 10 million people defecate on the ground or on plastic bags that are later thrown into rivers or canals.
Also, the NSSMP had reported in 2015 that 55 people die every day from unsafe water sources due to the fact that 90 percent of the wastewater in the country is uncollected and untreated.
The NSSMP report added that most Filipinos “do not have septic tanks; many septic tanks have open bottoms; and most septic tanks are not regularly desludged and the septage removed is not treated and disposed of properly."
The DPWH, in a 2017 report to the Senator Loren Legarda of the Senate Finance Committee, said the failure of the country to invest in adequate sewerage system resulted to economic losses exceeding P78 billion per year as well as “damage to ecosystems and biodiversity.”
Wastewater contains a number of pollutants and contaminants such that when discharged to freshwater bodies and marine waters without being treated, can cause water pollution that is harmful to aquatic life. Wastewater can leach into underground water tables and potentially contaminate aquifers and underground water, according to the DENR.
Wastewater is also disposed in rivers, streams and lakes.
According to the DENR, as many as 50 of the 421 rivers in the country are already considered “biologically dead.” This means that only the species that can thrive in the worst water conditions can live in these rivers.
And since water districts are in the forefront of industrial and residential consumption, which later on end up as wastewater, the task of helping in wastewater treatment also falls on them and their respective local governments.
Angeles City Water District
The Angeles City Water District (ACWD) is the largest among all 13 water districts in Pampanga. It caters to some 55,000 concessionaires who are mostly from industrial, commercial and residential establishments. They consume 1.6 million cubic meters of water per month.
This means that the city produces 19.2 million cubic meters of wastewater each year that if left untreated, the wastewater would end up polluting surface and ground water sources.
Fortunately, ACWD has its own septage treatment facility—the only one in Pampanga.
Built on a budget of P99 million, the treatment facility sits on a 4,000 square meters property in Barangay Cutud and can process some 85 to 100 cubic meters of septage water.
General Manager Reynaldo Liwanag said the process of the treatment involves waste collected and injected into receiving tanks were solid particles will be separated from the water. The sludge and the water will then be processed separately. The sludge will be collected for use in organic farming.
Liwanag said there are farms that use the sludge as soil conditioner. The sludge is treated with enzymes where the biotech process will then breakdown the pathogenic load of the sludge and heat the material through biological reaction resulting in an organic soil additive.
Liwanag added that treated sludge is also used for sugarcane farms were it is treated with enzymes and added to molasses to ferment.
The personnel of the water district were already trained by the engineers who built the treatment facility on how to run the entire process.
Liwanag said their process is so efficient that the water coming out of the treatment process was rated Category C. This meant that water from the treatment facility could be used for irrigation.
“Fish can even live in the water that we have treated,” Liwanag said, however, the water that has been treated ends up in a polluted stream.
“The stream were the treated water exits is already polluted. We worry that people might think the stream is polluted and stinky because of the water coming from the facility,” Liwanag said.
Despite the fact that ACWD’s septage treatment facility is already 100 percent complete, they have yet to actually run it for actual operations.
Liwanag said they had to wait for two years before all the permits were in place.
Just recently, the Environmental Management Bureau of the DENR released its Environmental Compliance Certificate for the said facility. And even as permits are in place, the ACWD has yet to receive its rates to be charged to concessionaires for treating the city’s septage waste. The rates will first pass through the scrutiny of the Local Water Utilities Administration.
“Currently, we are still establishing the rates to be charged,” Liwanag said, adding that the ACWD is looking at six percent of the total water consumption of each establishment.
ACWD’s steps to treat waste water stands on the spirit of Ordinance 343, S-2014.
The ordinance, which provides for the local laws on water quality and septage management in Angeles City, features the creation of a City Water Resources Management Board. The board is tasked to do regular water sampling and analysis. The board is also expected to assist in the enforcement of anti-pollution laws.
The ordinance also places emphasis on the standards for the building of future septic tanks and mandates that desludging of septic tanks ones every three to five years.
City of San Fernando Water District
Unlike its counterpart, the City of San Fernando Water District (CSFWD) has yet to construct its septage treatment facility. The water utility needs some P100 million for the said project.
CSFWD is one of the large water utilities in Central Luzon with some 50,000 concessionaires and with a promising growth rate in water connections at an average increase of around 1,000 concessionaires each year. The water utility’s concessionaire water consumption is almost the same with its Angeles City counterpart.
General Manager Jorge Gumba said they are now in the process of looking for the suitable land to construct the treatment facility.
Unlike its Angeles City counterpart, CSFWD figures prominently in the recently passed Ordinance 2018-001, the city’s septage management system ordinance.
CSFWD is empowered in the Article VII of the said ordinance to add P2.99 for every cubic meter of water consumed on the monthly water bill of the water user. Also, unlike in Angeles City, water users with no billable water flow or water consumption with the CSFWD are covered by the ordinance. The CSFWD will estimate the user fee by averaging the billable flow of the households with the same number of members and their toilets.
Commercial establishments too, who have their own water sources, are required to install a production meter. The volume of water produced shall be the basis for computing the cost of desludging the septic tanks.
Gumba added that, like in Angeles City, there are now clearer and more comprehensive local penalties against disposing septage water into the environment.
In 2009, a company was fined for dumping septage waste in sugarcane farms in Barangay Alasas and Magliman, both in the City of San Fernando. How about greywater?
However, while the ordinances of Angeles City and the City of San Fernando echo all other laws against water pollution and provide adequate punishments, the ordinances were silent on the issue of greywater -- which in fact forms the greater bulk of wastewater.
Greywater is the term applied to domestic wastewater that is drained from sinks, showers and kitchens. It is different from toilet wastewater (septage), which is generally flushed into septic tanks. It usually ends up in drainages and end up being disposed without being treated.
ACWD general manager Reynaldo Liwanag said that for greywater to be treated, sewerage treatment facilities should be constructed, which means that billions would be needed for such projects in highly urbanized cities.
Asked why most water utilities focus on septage treatment facilities, Liwanag said: “This is what we can put up for now because you would need billions for sewerage facilities.”
CSFWD general manager Jorge Gumba said that for a sewerage treatment facility to work in a large city like San Fernando, barangays and districts would need to be clustered into at least four or five areas with each having its own treatment facility.
“For that to work, we are talking about millions which most water districts and government units do not have. We have to start somewhere. Septage treatment is the most reasonable course. Waiting for costly sewerage treatment would mean we will be waiting at the cost of the environment,” Gumba added.
As for the septage facilities, Gumba said there should be a provincial-wide survey to look into communities and households without septic tanks and to address such problem with concrete government support.
Sewerage and treatment technologies
The NSSMP Operations Manual has outline different sewer systems and treatment technologies for wastewater treatment.
For sewerage systems, sanitary sewers, combine sewer systems, condominial sewers, and small diameter effluent sewers may be employed. However, constructing these would mean constructing one or a combination of these sewerage facilities for more than 479, 082 households in the whole of Pampanga, alone. This is not counting the hundreds of commercial and industrial establishments.
As for the configuration of septage treatment facilities, the NSSMP Operations Manual prescribed the use of activated sludge treatment, which is generally mixing the septage with a polymer to chemically condition the septage. Example of this is that of the Dagat-Dagatan Septage Plant and the South Septage Treatment Plant run by Maynilad and Manila Water, respectively.
Anaerobic digestion and composting may also be used. Anaerobic digestion involves letting microorganism breakdown the organic material in the absence of oxygen. The sea-side town of Bayawan City in Negros Oriental utilizes this system.
Treatment wetlands, which is characterized by chemical stabilization with hydrated lime and effluent treatment with lagoons, such as the one used In the San Fernando, La Union Septage Pilot Study may also be utilized.
These treatment facilities cost millions to construct, however, they are less expensive compared to extensive sewerage treatment systems.
The cost of construction of such facilities is one of the reasons why the P650-million allotment in the care of the DPWH remains unused.
The financial subsidy is not enough to encourage applicants from local government units to avail of it even while the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) has already given its approval for the increase in subsidy to 50 percent. It would actually take the combined efforts and resources of local government units, water districts and the national government to build wastewater treatment systems.
And as the 2020 deadline draws near, local government units and water districts, who are in the process of building a wastewater treatment systems in their areas, would have to work double time with stakeholders to be able to beat the deadline.